Arthur Ribeiro – 1500

‘Arthur was born in Goiás (practically in the Cerrado, the heart of the country) and now lives between Goiânia and Brasília, the capital of Brazil. He’s 20 years old and I am 43, and although taking care of my daughters takes up a lot of my time I’ve always done my best to keep going out skating with him and other longtime friends. I think I’m addicted. I’ve also just always found Arthur very inspiring, and filming him has really taught me to push myself…
One day while I was at work he called me, I hadn’t seen him in a while… He told me he was going to be a father, and I decided to give him this project as a gift, to help him somehow. He’s only on flow for Cons so I thought maybe having this little bit of extra shine wouldn’t hurt… I think we started filming this in April 2020, in the middle of the Covid pandemic, with a few breaks, and of course having to balance the project with working from home and family life. The music was a mutual choice: Manduka is a Brazilian musician who was exiled in Chile during the dictatorship. 1500 – the song title – is a portrait of everything the country has been going through and we continue to go through, especially since Bolsonaro was elected in 2018. We live in a time when culture is slaughtered and forgotten. I believe that having the opportunity to focus on a project like this when everything else about our current situation is so troublesome really helps maintain some sanity.’

– Ademar Badê